It should be relatively easy to both engineer completely controlled "farms" for growing insects and to selectively breed variants that are more suitable for food. We should be able to produce a creature that would be a great deal more palatable to the western palate as well as easier to process.
Have you ever seen a wild strawberry or a wild carrot? Many examples of the former are little mean things whose entire surface is seed, and the latter can have the consistency of wood. (Sometimes fully domesticated carrots can have woody parts in the center.)
In general, the domesticated versions of plants are an order of magnitude tastier than their wild ancestors, and a great deal of adaptation can be managed with animals as well. Insects, with their small size and short lifespans, should be even easier to domesticate, once we set our minds to it.
We should be able to produce a creature that would be a great deal more palatable to the western palate as well as easier to process.
The things about bugs that make them unpalatable to Western palates have very little to do with the physical aspects and food. It's all an image problem,.
While true, it's not -too- necessary. There's a pretty good set of insects that are already 'palpable to the western palate'. Grasshoppers/crickets when stir fried pretty much tastes like crunchy chicken (at least that's my 5 year old memory of it).
Also, it's pretty clear that the 'western palate' is super open to change from social pressures. You guys seem to love raw fish now.
Pass the word: rich, cultured people eat lovely healthy organic DUTCH_HERE. This script has gotten people to eat cooked snails, raw fish, and various microbial infection byproducts before.
They're only "bugs" if you're incompetent at marketing.
Perhaps "land shrimp"? Seriously, I agree that putting the word "bugs" in the name of the products does not bode well for attracting any but the adventurous and novelty-seeking Americans/Europeans.
Even worse, they're describing it as chicken nugget replacements: i.e. for those people who are too poor to buy McNuggets now you can get fat on BugNuggets. I'd have difficulty coming up with a less appealing narrative for food if I tried.
Are we talking Africa poor or American poor? For Americans: beef, pork, chicken, fish, or anythig else. At the top of the list of problems poor Americans don't have: dang, poverty is greatly restricting my protein and calorie intake.
For everybody else, seaweed, legumes, or whatever. You really don't need Western levels of protein consumption, as evidenced by e.g. it being a minuscule portion of the traditional diets of Non-Western nations without peacetime food problems, like, say, Japan.
Plus after they're rich they can overconsume meat like we do. It practically defines being a rich country when your local poor people eat meat regularly.
I'm talking about Americans working 2 or 3 jobs who don't have the time, and honestly don't have the money either (yes, such poverty does exist in the US, perhaps you are just lucky enough to have not encountered it...) needed to cook meals with sufficient nutrient value for their (often quite large...) family. The result of this is that malnutrition is a very real problem among children of poor families. The worst part about this is the problem is infectious. Children that grow up without proper nutrition will be intellectually and physically stunted, dramatically increasing the chances that when they eventually have a family their children will end up the same way.
Statements like "local poor people eat meat regularly." are just flat out ignorant. I've known families that save up for bulk rice. "Seaweed, legumes or whatever" is so unrealistic it is absurd. People with time and money have those luxuries.
Search for "Food Consumption of Poor Children", read the following two paragraphs. USDA data shows poor people eat a) more protein than non-poor people (yes, really), b) more meat than average citizens of many rich nations (like Japan or the UK), and c) vastly more meat than average citizens of Mexico/Brazil/etc.
You do realize that the "research" you cite comes from an ultra-rightwing think tank, right? They have a longstanding agenda of trying to make people believe that poverty doesn't exist in America.
Data from the National School Lunch Program suggests the same thing. Protein deficiency is not statistically a challenge faced by Americans living below the poverty line. You can disagree with Heritage's politics (I certainly do), but it's naive to suggest that they're simply fabricating their underlying data.
I didn't suggest an outright fabrication. No need to restate here all of the cliches about how statistics can be manipulated. My only suggestion was that the Heritage Foundation are an absolutely worthless source. If you've provided a better one, that's great.
Even if we grant that protein deficiency itself is not a huge problem for America's poor, it nevertheless remains that the protein (and food generally) available to our poor is of the lowest quality.
Since Heritage here provided data that ultimately appears to be correct, your assertion that it's a "worthless" source isn't borne out, and so I'm less inclined to pursue a tangent about protein "quality" with you.
That's too bad, because I have a lot of thoughts about protein quality, and I think you'd probably agree with them. Unfortunately, you're in a place where you seem more inclined to troll threads with politics, so, maybe some other time.
I disagree with your logic here. To my mind, there are many sources that are absolutely not worth wasting any time on who may nevertheless say true things from time to time. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a source that tells only lies.
Heritage's data come from a Dept of Ag study. This seems like an excellent example of why we should try to cite original authors instead of intermediaries.
I honestly didn't mean to do anything trollish. And what's with "quality" in scare quotes?
The guy who attempts to refute an apparently correct study by putting the word "research" in scare quotes doesn't get to complain about other people's quotation marks, but for what it's worth, I'm a local protein guy.
Next time someone who does not share your exact political beliefs (or your orthodoxy in ensuring that his/her tertiary sources have unimpeachable credentials), I suggest you actually read what they're saying and come back with facts. The reality is that in a community of professionals, you're unlikely to find yourself conversing solely with people who agree with your worldview.
The irony is, I probably do agree with your politics, but I find the way you handled this particular wrinkle of the discussion so repellant that I've been driven somewhat apey.
I had totally forgotten that I had put "research" in scare quotes. You're right: it turned out to be unwarranted.
That having been said, I think you misunderstand me. I'm quite eager to learn from people who don't share my beliefs; it's the only reason I spend any time slogging through these comments in the first place. The spirit of my original reply, and what I should have said, is that bringing the Heritage Foundation into the discussion can only serve to muddle things.
He didn't bring Heritage into it. He sourced a fact to a Heritage report, which turned out to be (surprise!) a fact. Please just stop talking about Heritage. An HN survival skill that has served me in good stead: just say "I was wrong, sorry." People will even upvote you for saying it, because it's so rare for a nerd to say it. You will be amazed how many pointless arguments those words get you out of.
> "bringing the Heritage Foundation into the discussion can only serve to muddle things."
Only if you choose to let it. Here on HN, we usually don't.
You mention in your profile that the quality of discussion here is "slightly better than most places on the web". This is not an accident; it's a result of our strong community standards. Name-calling or ad hominem is generally rewarded with downvotes. Our preference is to look deeper into data and disagree in productive ways [0], not to get upset at the mention of a politically slanted organization.
You've had a rough introduction to our community. I hope you stay a while, learn our standards, and have a productive time here.
They appear to be the group with USDA data to back up their claims regarding a measurable fact of material reality. If you have better data, please, do share.
This is a content free comment. Please stop sucking the oxygen out of the thread. Nutrition information specific to the US cross-tabbed by income is a pain in the ass to find, but it is out there. If you want to refute a study, you'll actually have to refute it, not simply cast aspersions on its authors.
I go to a largely agricultural school, and that's actually one of the programs they have. Legumes are both nutritious and fairly easy to grow, so are great for small farming communities where protein deficiency is rampant. Animals are used for their products like eggs and milk to sell at market and not used for protein. I'm not really poor, but legumes are much cheaper than meat and have extended my own budget, so I think it can apply for families in America as well.
I mostly agree with what you said, with the addendum that poor Americans do have the tendency to buy cheap, bulk process foods for the same reason they wouldn't be able to afford "Seaweed, legumes or whatever". I'm not saying that families who need to save money for rice do this, but families with a little more money seem to always have alot of processed food.
I don't think 'insekten' would work and in the end people will find out. Why not try to put a positive spin on bugs? This will cost time but any other way will too.
Well, Mexico is a place where you can find places to eat insects fairly easily. Like "chapulines" (grasshopers)from Oaxaca. They are very crunchy and tasty. ;)
The mexicas (from prehispanic era) used to have a variety of insects in their menu.
Interesting. I wonder how bugs stack up for heme-iron and the other nutrients (aside from protein) that one gets from red meat. It's diversity of nutrients, and the body's efficiency at absorbing them, that for me make the strongest case for an omnivorous diet. It's the environmental cost of raising animal protein that for me is the strongest argument for vegetarianism.
Diversity is often overlooked when people think about diet. The longest lived populations also tend to have preserved a tremendous amount of diversity in their diet. Folks living in the hills of Sicily can sometimes incorporate material from several dozen different kinds of plants in a single meal. In contrast, it's not unusual for a North American to make a meal with corn, peas, potatoes, and some form of meat. That's between one or two orders of magnitude less diversity.
I've tried purposely maximizing dietary diversity, and it seems to make a difference for me.
Why is it I have no problems eating shrimp or lobster, but the thought of insects disgusts me? Shrimp and lobster are crustaceans which are arthropods just like insects.
Because one provide a large continuous chunk of meat, and the other doesn't? Also are insects gutted or do you end up eating their entire intestinal track?
... and neither are crustaceans. They're mollusks, and they're delicious when properly cooked (especially mussels, if you ever visit the north of France, Belgium or the Netherlands, you'll miss something if you don't try them).
I find oysters disappointing though, especially for their high price. They're just textureless, wet salty things.
French people also eat snails. With truckloads of garlic, to mask the dirt taste, they're quite nice to eat too.
Yeah, I think if we were used to having various animals whole on the table (even if we didn't eat certain parts) it would be easier to face a cricket on your plate.
I remember when I was little, I enjoyed fish- but my family once visited a fairly authentic Chinese restaurant, and ordered fish which came with the head and tail attached... I had such a hard time eating any with those empty eye-sockets staring at me.
Indeed, that's the thought that got me to rationalize my disgust for tasting insects when I was living in Thailand.
If I had no problem trying the spicy salad with live shrimps why should I think twice about eating the grilled grasshopers ?
You can even extend this reasoning to most delicacies of the sea, clams and oysters don't look any better.
Don't you end up eating the digestive system of the bug along with the rest of it? The sticking point for me is not that the animal is a bug, but that I am eating its waste. Never having eaten bugs, I'm not sure how exactly this works out.
When eating shrimp and lobster, you are typically eating the processed muscle mass (and shell, if you are into that), rather than the whole animal in one bite.
Typically wild insects meant for food are allowed to eat flour or corn meal for a couple of days in order to flush their digestive systems of whatever they may have been eating before. This isn't as big of an issue for farmed insects.
I'm sure it's entirely cultural (I've lived in two very distinct cuisine cultures) and thus entirely irrational, but I like to eat living things from saltwater much better than things from fresh water. Crustaceans tend to be oceanic, while insects are terrestrial. That difference makes some difference in my thinking about them.
A piece of advice I learned in the publishing industry: When a headline ends in a question mark, and the question can be answered either "yes" or "no", it's never yes.
It's interesting to note that this is not a new concept. I've long been enamored of Vincent Holt's 1885 "Why Not Eat Insects". It the work of a very earnest Victorian gentleman trying to figure out how best to deal with the protein needs of "the poor", leading to the conclusion that the upper class must lead the way by changing their attitude toward the consumption of insects:
It is hard, very hard, to overcome the feelings that have
been instilled into us from our youth upwards; but still I
foresee the day when the slug will be as popular in
England as its luscious namesake the Trepang, or sea-slug,
is in China, and a dish of grasshoppers fried in butter as
much relished by the English peasant as a similarly
treated dish of locusts is by an Arab or Hottentot. There
are many reasons why this is to be hoped for. Firstly,
philosophy bids us neglect no wholesome source of food.
Secondly, what a pleasant change from the labourer's
unvarying meal of bread, lard, and bacon, or bread and
lard without bacon, or bread without lard or bacon, would
be a good dish of fried cockchafers or grasshoppers. "How
the poor live!" Badly, I know; but they neglect wholesome
foods, from a foolish prejudice which it should be the
task of their betters, by their example, to overcome.
Note that it also yields 10 kg of feed, which sounds more appealing to me than locusts. Unless these locust nuggets turn out to be the best tasting thing ever, I think I'll have my feed with a side of chicken, and leave the locusts to the more adventurous.
Yes, but you do need some protein. Not to say you have to eat bugs to get it, but it's a step up from beef or pork.
One other thought- you assume you can or would eat bug feed.
Locusts, for example, eat: leaves, flowers, bark, stems, fruit, and seeds. While it is true humans can eat all of these things, it is typically only from select plants. When was the last time you ate a rice plant, or bark that wasn't Cinnamon?
Well, I guess it depends on what particular mindset. I do not eat meat, because I think that most animals that are commonly eaten are sentient, and I believe intentionally killing sentient animals is wrong.
The question of course is, what animals are sentient. I don't know. But I find it plausible that, say worms, are not really sentient. And from that perspective it's pretty ok to eat worms. Since I do not know where to draw the line, I play safe and avoid meat, but others would choose differently.
Some of my friends are also vegetarians, not because they think killing animals is wrong, but because they believe animal farming has a negative impact on the environment. If insect farming does not have the same impact, it could be a reason for them to consider eating insects.
I don't want to attack you or anything, just want to point out that no living thing wants to die.
There is evidence that even plants have some form of sensation [1]
Of course living things don't want to die. But if you decide that all living things including plants deserve to not be eaten or harvested, your menu becomes incredibly short.
I mean, you are not left with absolutely nothing to eat, but all you've got that I can think of is dairy, fruit and nuts. You could technically eat grains, but harvesting enough grain without killing the plant is difficult.
It's a matter of ease and usability. Go to any normal restaurant and the set of non-meat (read, tofu) is rather limited (read, none). Of course, I cook myself and I'm selective that I don't eat too much meat. But that's additional work. It would be great if non meat would be a more common part of the food industry. To make it easier to find / eat it. (Even the salad offerings are terrible, most of the time. The Mediterranean areas are pretty good at that, though).
"Go to any normal restaurant and the set of non-meat (read, tofu) is rather limited (read, none)"
We must be in dramatically different parts of the world... I never really considered the east coast particularly good for that particular kind of variety either.. ..but I have no problem eating vegetarian most of the time.
Here (Netherlands) it's also not that bad, there's often a few sections on the menu: meat, fish, vegetarian. If you're lucky, they're of similar size. Supermarkets have a reasonable selection of meat substitutes, though I prefer to use cheese, mushrooms or nuts (and meat ;))
It does vary even more, now that you mention it: I remember San Jose in Costa Rica having many different vegan (not vegetarian) option.
I don't think they can ever completely replace beef or pork, but the article was pretty dead on when they described them as something crunchy that could be added to fried rice or whatever.
Depends on the definition of the term vegetarian. You can go with the "no meat, but fish and bugs allowed" definiton?
I wonder why do we, as humans, consider eating bugs strange, and why haven't they evolved as a regular part of the modern human diet? Is it only for historical reasons, social, or is it something physical or biological?
There are a couple of reasons why some vegetarions (pescetarians) eat fish and not other meat. The main one is health, since it is really difficult to get a healthy and varied diet, with enough protein and fat, through eating just plants. A lot of people also don't believe that fish suffers as much as other animals.
I'm curious to see how many people turn out to be allergic to insects. Again drawing the analogy to shellfish which are among the most common food allergens.
This is not to say that eating insects is a bad idea in general, though.
That's probably because it's heathly. People in rice-eating regions, for example, typically ingest significant numbers of rice weevil (Sitophilus oryzae) larvae, and this has been suggested as an important source of vitamins.[37] ...
3.1.2 Wheat flour shall be free from abnormal flavours, odours, and living insects. 3.1.3 Wheat flour shall be free from filth (impurities of animal origin, including dead insects) in amounts which may represent a hazard to human health.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's The Food Defect Action Levels booklet.[39] Contamination on the average of 150 or more insect fragments per 100 grams of wheat flour, or below poses no health hazard.
For instance it is suspected that the prevalence of peanut allergies is connected to the fact that stored peanuts usually have cockroach infestations. The FDA limit on acceptable levels are 30 insect parts per 100 grams. (See http://www.fda.gov/food/guidancecomplianceregulatoryinformat... for verification.)
That is contamination, but there also are additives where insects are added on purpose: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal is used to color lots of food red.
I'm thinking vegetarian options are not necessarily more eco-friendly than this solution, which is 10-100 times more efficient than pigs. Factory-grown bugs take little room. The corn around here (I'm in Iowa) take up 96% of the land surface of the state.
Organic vegetables take up - more ecosystem. More passes thru the field to baby them, more loss to insects etc so less yield. And they are labor-intensive so load them with the cost of raising the humans that tend them. Humans are Really eco-unfriendly, especially when used as laborers.
I vaguely remember it being some huge number, like 80%-90%? The rest of it goes to ethanol and high fructose corn syrup and other processing. I'm pretty sure the amount of corn that is grown for humans to eat as corn directly is (much?) less than 5%.
A quick Google search showed roughly similar stats.
I should have said get "scientists" involved and they make it more complicated. As usual they don't know what they are talking about. This earth can support 10x the current population with a vegeterian agrarian lifestyle. Our current system is exploitative and selfish. As Gandhi said, there is enough for everyone's need, not everyone's greed.
Have you ever seen a wild strawberry or a wild carrot? Many examples of the former are little mean things whose entire surface is seed, and the latter can have the consistency of wood. (Sometimes fully domesticated carrots can have woody parts in the center.)
In general, the domesticated versions of plants are an order of magnitude tastier than their wild ancestors, and a great deal of adaptation can be managed with animals as well. Insects, with their small size and short lifespans, should be even easier to domesticate, once we set our minds to it.